


The Marshall Swindle

by TinyFakeFanficRock



Series: Park's Quests [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Anal Sex, Chess, F/M, Gang Rape, Humiliation, Misogynist Slurs, Object Penetration, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:32:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFakeFanficRock/pseuds/TinyFakeFanficRock
Summary: The Courier's going to need one hell of a gambit to get herself and Arcade out of the clutches of some sadistic Legionaries.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Fallout Kink Meme.

The sun was still in the sky when Bernie and Arcade left Novac, but only just barely. They'd gone to pass Tommy Torini's business card to Bruce Isaac, but stayed for dinner with Daisy and beers and bullshitting with Manny afterward. It had been a good day, and now they were back on the road. 

They looked like such an unlikely pair that often other travelers didn't realize they were together: Arcade a big, neat man with a carefully-cultivated casualness to his carriage, Bernie a small, rough woman who carried herself with all the ease of an overwound spring. But under that, they were two of a kind, clever, stubborn people determined to survive as kindly as possible. Cass had once said that if they weren't both gay, they'd have gotten married already. As it was, he felt comfortable calling her his best friend. The title was rusty from disuse, but it was all hers; Arcade hadn't had a best friend since Albert Hamilton in kindergarten, who'd protected Arcade's block towers from being razed by the other marauding five-year-olds and who'd tried gamely to understand chess when Arcade tried to teach him to play. Then his father died and the running started, and his interest in the "King's Game" had to be confined to solving problems in whatever pre-War books he could scrounge on the topic -- until Bernie.

Arcade had been surprised when she challenged him to a chess game -- he hadn't expected her to know how to play, -- then astonished when she beat him, then delighted when, after five games, they'd each won once and drawn three times. They played whenever they had the opportunity to set up the board, and bickered cheerfully about tactics when they didn't. At the moment, they had resumed their favourite chess argument, whether d4 or e4 was the best opening move.

"I don't know why you bother with e4 when the Sicilian Defence exists," Bernie was saying, not for the first time, walking backwards just so he could see her smirking at him.

Arcade's also-well-worn reply died on his tongue when she backed straight into the arms of a Legionary who had not been there the moment before. He yelped and fumbled for his Plasma Defender, but found himself staring down the barrel of an assault carbine, held by a man wearing a dog's head for a hat. Something else -- another gun barrel, he presumed -- pressed against the base of his skull.

Bernie flailed furiously against her captor, but she'd never been much good at close combat, and the Legionary in a dark-feathered helmet also had the advantages of size and surprise. He wrestled her to the ground with little difficulty, though she continued to struggle.

A fourth Legionary, this one wearing a crested helmet, looked them over and nodded. "Let's get off the road."

His captors obeyed, turning Arcade and marching him toward the abandoned wind farm nearby. Now he was facing one in a plain helmet, who had indeed been holding a hunting shotgun to his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Legionary holding Bernie pull her up. "On your feet."

She was not in a mood to cooperate, and Arcade heard a scuffle that ended with a hideous crunch and Bernie's howl of pain rapidly muffled with what he guessed was a hand over her mouth. Then the Legionary swore and struck her. She must have bitten him.

"I hope I get to watch when Caesar crucifies you, you worthless cunt."

"Both of you, shut up before those Cazadores over the hill come after us," ordered the one in the crested helmet -- a centurion, the one in charge. Arcade couldn't seem to remember enough of what he'd read about Roman military organization to guess at the others' ranks, though, so in his mind he simply labeled the others Feather Helmet, Dog Helmet, and Plain Helmet.

They herded Bernie and Arcade into the wind farm's stuffy maintenance shack. Dog Helmet kept his gun trained on Arcade while Feather Helmet and Plain Helmet wrestled Bernie to the floor, the centurion gloating as he confiscated their weapons and rifled through their packs. In the lantern light, Arcade could finally see that the crunch he'd heard outside had been Bernie's left knee, now obviously dislocated.

The centurion took everything he'd stolen from them outside; they heard the clatter of metal boxes, and then he returned. "You made a mistake when you attacked Cottonwood Cove," he said to Bernie.

She remained defiant. "Yeah, not crossing the river and tearing down the fucking Fort, too."

In response, he brought his Super Sledge down on her right ankle, and then on her right hand. There wasn't room in the shack for him to swing it in a full arc -- small mercies -- but bones cracked all the same. Somehow she restrained her cries of pain to two short, sharp barks.

Feather Helmet, sneering, punched her in the nose. "And you won't make that mistake again, now that we've got you and your doctor fuckbuddy."

"My friend," she corrected him, breathing shakily, good hand clenched against pain, blood starting to trickle toward her mouth.

Feather Helmet cuffed her again. "Don't tell us you aren't fucking him, slut."

"I don't fuck men at all."

The centurion's answering laugh sent shudders through Arcade. "You will now." He nodded to the others, and they started to rip away her armor. Bernie tried to twist away, but she didn't have enough functioning limbs left to fight effectively. "Caesar wants the pleasure of killing you, but he didn't say we couldn't have fun with you on the way."

 _Oh, no, no, no. Not this. Not to Bernie._ Arcade, horrified, played the only card he had. "Look, if that's what you want, use me. She doesn't know how to please a man, but I do."

They only laughed at him. Dog Helmet tied him to the massive drill press in the corner, then joined the others, holding Bernie's arms as they finished tearing her out of her clothes. She turned her head toward him, casting him a look that said _I know you tried._ It only exacerbated his guilt. If he were stronger, faster, hell, if he'd just been paying better attention ... but he had let his guard down, and here they were.

The marks of the Legionaries' cruel handling were already rising on her skin, faint on her golden arms and starkly clear against her pale thighs. In his medical capacity, Arcade had of course seen many parts of Bernie's body that the Mojave sun did not, but seeing her stripped bare like this nauseated him with the sheer _wrongness_ of it. He shouldn't be seeing her like this. None of them should be seeing her like this. He dropped his head and focused on working free of the knots binding his wrists. 

"Ugh, she has no tits," said Plain Helmet, pulling her legs apart.

"Good tits are hard to find out here," Dog Helmet told him with authority. _How many women has he raped to develop this opinion?_ Arcade thought, stomach still churning. Then he wondered at himself: _What the hell is wrong with you? Your best friend is being tortured and you're thinking about sample sizes._

"No hips, either. The degenerate's probably more of a woman than she is," complained Feather Helmet.

Sulfuric acid had nothing on Bernie's tone. "So sorry to disappoint."

The centurion stuck his fingers between her legs. "Still has a cunt, though. She'll do."

Arcade would have done anything to spare Bernie this torture, even walked into Camp McCarran screaming "I'm from the Enclave!" without a second thought, but even his darkest secret was powerless to save his best friend. The centurion knelt over her.

"When I get out of this," Bernie said to him, almost conversationally, "I will saw your cock off with a spoon."

He twisted her nipple savagely, stroking himself with his free hand.

She growled in pain. "A _wooden_ spoon."

Then he grabbed her hips and slammed into her; Bernie tried to bite back her scream, but couldn't suppress it entirely.

"I didn't think a profligate whore would be this tight," he said, panting as he thrust.

"Pay attention, doctor boy; you're missing the show," Plain Helmet shouted at him. Arcade raised his head, fixed his gaze on the opposite wall, and cursed his peripheral vision. Satisfied that he was also suffering, the Legionaries resumed ignoring him.

The centurion took his time, finally finishing with a gutteral moan. When he recovered, he took over pinning Bernie's left leg. Freed from that task, Feather Helmet took his turn. He straddled her chest, cock in hand, and pushed forward.

"You put that pathetic little thing anywhere near my mouth and I will bite it off."

"Do that and I knock out all your teeth."

"Even if you did, you'd still be dickless."

He must have decided it wasn't worth the risk. He moved down her body and began to fuck her, fast and brutally. "Fuck, she _is_ tight."

"When I get out of this, I will jam a stick of dynamite through each of your eye sockets." Feather Helmet punched her in the face again and continued pounding into her.

Then came Dog Helmet, and then Plain Helmet, and then the centurion began it again. Each of them raped her twice. Bernie kept up her litany of threats throughout, snarling a fresh one each time they traded positions atop her, repeating "when I get out of this" like an incantation.

As the centurion mounted her for the third time, she said, "When I get out of this, I will put Caesar's head on a stick and shove that stick all the way up your ass."

He paused. "There's an idea." He took a wrench from the shelves nearby and drove the handle into her ass. "Now shut the fuck up or I'll turn it around."

Arcade held his breath. _Please don't test him; please don't test him ..._

The centurion thrust the wrench into her again, harder. Bernie's only reply was a whimper. Arcade had never heard her make that sound before, and never wanted to hear it again. He wished he were dead.

They fucked her bloody with the wrench and a piece of scrap metal until the door to the shack creaked open and everyone froze.

Arcade's hopes rose, and then plummeted when another damned Legionary in a dog hat walked in, pausing to take in the scene. "Am I interrupting something, gentlemen?" he said in a silky voice that chilled Arcade's bones. "I would hate to disrupt your playtime with the profligates with something as trifling as Caesar's commands, but you've missed our rendezvous." Then he paused and looked at Bernie and Arcade more closely. "Well, now. The courier Bernadette Park and her pet Follower, Doctor Gannon."

Bernie broke her silence. "Vulpes Inculta. The fuck are you doing here?" The name was familiar, but Arcade couldn't place it.

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood," he replied smoothly.

"Couldn't tell without the tire fires."

The pieces clicked into place in his mind. _Oh, the man who razed Nipton. Things just keep getting better for us._

They exchanged a few more pointed comments, but Arcade wasn't listening: His bonds had finally loosened behind him. He held onto the ropes to conceal their slack until he was ready to reveal his ... relative freedom.

"Enough of this," Vulpes said, reaching into his pack. "Come here, girl."

"I can't fucking walk, you idiot."

"You can crawl." He motioned the others to let her go.

"You motherless shit."

He pointed to Arcade and reached for his Ripper. "Or I can start taking pieces off of him." Arcade almost wished he would, to distract them from Bernie, then was revolted by the cowardly part of himself that made it only an _almost_.

She hauled herself up onto her elbows and dragged herself toward Vulpes, breath coming in jagged hisses. Arcade's chest ached; for all they'd done to her already, she was still trying to save _him_. He didn't deserve a friend like her.

Vulpes leaned over, snapped a dog collar around her neck, then jerked fiercely on the attached leash. "Perfect. Antony has his prize bitch, and now I have mine."

"I thought your prize bitch was the one on your head."

He yanked on the leash again, then kicked her in the side, drawing a crack and a sickening wheeze. Bernie dropped to the floor, pulling the leash taut; she struggled for breath until she recovered enough to raise her head again. Arcade fought back tears.

Vulpes smiled serenely down at her and took a few steps away, forcing her to drag her broken body after him. "We will take so many lovely walks around the Fort, Miss Park, that I'll miss you so when it's time to put you down." He turned to the other Legionaries. "Good work."

They straightened, smiled at his praise. _They're the dogs,_ Arcade thought bitterly.

"Plus we captured the doctor, too," said the centurion brightly, "so --"

"Not in front of the pets," said Vulpes sharply. He looped Bernie's leash around the leg of the workbench, then pointed at the door. They left, he followed, and then Arcade and Bernie were alone in the airless shack.

He tried not to think about what they wanted _him_ for as their voices faded to a low murmur. When he could no longer hear them at all, Arcade dropped the ropes and knelt at Bernie's side. As he freed her from the dog collar, he made a quick mental list of her wounds: dislocated left knee, smashed right hand and ankle, at least one cracked rib, broken nose, one eye swollen shut, genital and rectal injuries, assorted contusions and lacerations. He went for his bag. " _Shit._ They took all the chems, too. I'll do what I can with what's left."

"What I can" was thoroughly inadequate, but doing anything at all to help Bernie lifted his spirits a little. He reset her knee, cleaned her up, helped her into fresh clothes, and made her as comfortable as he could. He sat beside her, resting his back against the wall and offering his leg as a pillow, which she accepted. He wanted to hug her, but didn't dare put his hands on her uninvited after everything the Legionaries had already done.

"Mind if I use you for an armrest?" he finally asked as casually as he could manage.

She knew him too well for that. "It's okay if _you_ touch me, Arcade. You don't have to act like we're teenagers on their first date."

"At least I didn't fake a yawn or something first." He draped his arm lightly along her shoulders.

She actually laughed a little, then said in a shaky voice, "Aw, fuck, what am I going to tell Betsy?" For the first time during this whole ordeal, her stoicism had wavered, confirming what Arcade had long suspected: Bernie really loved the First Recon corporal. If they kept this line of conversation up, she'd fall apart. Eventually catharsis would be good for Bernie's recovery, but he doubted she wanted to do that now.

So he said simply, "She's tough. She can take it. But you don't have to decide what to say just yet."

She seemed grateful for the out. "Yeah, we should probably survive this first. How long have they been gone?"

"About two hours, but they've been quiet for the last forty-five minutes or so. I don't think they're coming back in here tonight. You should try to get some rest. It'll help you heal faster." _Although it probably won't matter if you do,_ he thought, _since they're probably going to kill us both in the next few days, maybe weeks if we're really unlucky._

He read the same thought on her face. "Heh. Not happening."

"I certainly can't blame you." He cast about for something to say, something to do, _anything_ , then spotted the chessboard peeking out of Bernie's pack. "Our board's still here; let's play. You've been hit in the head, so we're evaluating your cognition."

It was a thin excuse to ignore the inevitable a little longer, and they both knew it, but she nodded anyway. "Your turn to play White."

He opened with d4, just for her, and she even smiled. For the first half an hour, it felt almost like old times. He was two moves from closing his queen-sacrifice trap on her when, out of habit, she reached for her piece with her right hand, swore in pain, and let it fall uselessly back to her side. Arcade winced and changed tactics.

A few moves later, Bernie looked up at him, her head tilted slightly. "You trying to let me win? You just passed up the perfect opening for a queen sacrifice."

"It feels a little too on-the-nose at the moment." He looked away, swallowing hard. His guilt remained lodged in his throat.

Her voice got fierce. "Don't you dare get maudlin on me now."

"Bern, I'm just sorr--"

" _Don't._ "

They played to stalemate in silence.

Finally Arcade said, "Well, your cognition seems just fine; I thought I had you there and you still forced the stalemate. When did you learn to swindle like that?"

"Dig a little deeper in my pack and you'll find a copy of _Marshall's Chess 'Swindles'_ that I found in House's library. It's yours, but not till I'm done reading it."

"Not much time left for reading," he said glumly.

"No shit. We're gonna need a real Marshall swindle to get us out of this one, so let's take inventory. What else did they leave us?"

"Most of our food, some of our water, my copy of _Candide_ , the Caravan deck, a couple of weapon repair kits, and --" it clinked at the bottom of the pack -- "my ammo. I don't think they knew what it was."

Her good eye lit up. "That thing take microfusion cells?"

"Small energy cells, but I can convert them."

"Good. Do it."

He moved to the workbench. "What, exactly, are we doing with these?"

"Making grenades. Gonna need your hands to do it, though. Put me on the table where I can see, and I'll talk you through it."

They made quick work of the grenade assembly, producing a half-dozen before Bernie pronounced them finished. "If I can't kill five people with six grenades, I don't deserve to live anyway. Okay, now crack the door and tell me what you see."

Arcade listened at the door first, in case any of the Legionaries were right outside, then eased it open just enough for a look at their surroundings. He nudged it almost shut again and reported back to the table where Bernie half-lay. "They're about twenty feet from the door. The centurion's on watch off to our right, facing that hill where he said there were Cazadores, and the others are asleep in a ring in front of us."

"Perfect. Even left-handed, I shouldn't be able to fuck that up too badly." 

She told him the plan, and he helped her over to sit beside the door of the shack. They listened again -- still quiet. Then, on her signal, he opened the shack's door wider, she hurled two of their improvised grenades toward the Legionaries, and Arcade shut the door against the concussions outside. 

One of the Legionaries groaned; another cursed. Bernie signaled Arcade again, and two more grenades later, all was once again silent.

They waited a few more moments, then she said, "Take another look out there."

Arcade saw only stillness. He turned to tell her so and caught her dashing tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. "Bern?"

"I'm okay." When she spied his incredulous stare, she looked herself over and said wryly, "Fine, okay-ish. It's just ... it was so quick for them. Now I get what Betsy meant when she said that letting go of the revenge fantasy was a hard part." She cleared her throat. "Anyway. They look dead out there?"

"Well, nothing's moving."

"Sounds promising. Let's make sure."

He opened the door again, all the way this time, stepped out into the first hints of sunrise, and looked over the scene. "There's ... a lot of arms and legs everywhere. Do you think we got all of them?"

"Easier to tell if you only count the torsos," Bernie said sagely.

"I bow to your experience," he replied, circling the area and kicking as many body parts as he could find into a rough pile. "Only four."

"Huh. How many dog heads?"

"Just one. At least, I'm pretty sure that used to be one."

"I bet that fuckface Inculta left early. Wonder which way he went."

"Doesn't matter. _We're_ going back to Novac to see if that butcher Straus has any clean supplies I can use to keep you stable until we get back to New Vegas. No, wait, _first_ we're going to buy that wheelbarrow we saw at Old Lady Gibson's so I don't have to carry you and all our gear everywhere."

"But you make such a good pack Brahmin." Arcade could swear there was a note of disappointment under her teasing. She couldn't _seriously_ have wanted to chase Inculta in her current state, right?

He let it go and retrieved their stolen belongings from the metal boxes outside, refilled their packs, and set them beside Bernie. She selected an incendiary grenade from hers, waved him back, and tossed it into the jumble of Legionary limbs. He had to admit, seeing them burst into flames was massively satisfying.

"Go get that leash, too."

He blinked, but complied. "To add to the pile, I assume?"

"Hell, no. Soon as I'm good to go again, we're getting the others, we're wiping the Fort off the map, and when we do, I am going to strangle Vulpes Inculta with that fucking thing."

"Sounds like a plan." He smiled, tight and grim, swung both their packs onto his shoulders, and carefully scooped Bernie into his arms.

As Arcade carried her away, she looked over his shoulder and said to the blazing mass of bodies, "Checkmate is coming, motherfuckers."


End file.
